Why Electoral Politics

After posting a picture of some dead Freedom Riders, a friend was met with some responses from some other friends. The argument was that we should not be moved to do something simply because others died for it.

I agree that the idea that someone died so that you might enjoy a right might not be a sufficient message. After all, some people died so that white people may enjoy slavery. Their martyrdom does not mean that white people should value slavery.

What I have seen, however, is that the vast majority of people invloved with electoral politics are people with very personal, selfish interests. It has been a generation and a half since a mass amount of altruistic people got involved at the ballot box.

I think that this accounts for a great deal of the sorry state of politics today…not all of it, but a great deal of it. If we continue to put our heads in the sand, politics will continue to benefit those self-interested people.

I don’t think that electoral politics will or should save our people, but I think that it is an area that we should invest some time with, rather than just just saying, “politics is too dirty for me.”